European Institute, London School of Economics
Ursula Von der Leyen: “European democracy must be more participative, more vibrant.” (Statement at the European Parliament Plenary, July 2024)
Attitudes → Participation
Attitudes ← Participation
Questions:
Main debates about participation and attitudes:
Need to find a context where:
Today, the common features of this service across the region are:
Households with at least one member between 18 and 65 years old are required by law either to engage in compulsory community manual labour or pay a substitute tax.
Only one member per household has to provide the service (in the past, it used to be the head of the household).
It involves 1 to 3 days of manual labour each year.
The amount of the tax is adjusted to the number of days required and minimum wage.
Issue:
Solution:
Contacted Wikipedia editors
Local journalists
Compiled a list of all the towns that still have the service with ChatGPT Deep Search function
Waited patiently for the responses…
“Dear Mayor,
…”
“Dear Ms Pro,
I am very honoured that you have promoted me to mayor, but I am ‘only’ the municipal secretary or head of the office!😉 Our mayor is on holiday this week and is therefore not in the office…”